An open letter to Luciano Berio on his hundredth birthday open.substack.com/pub/disgwylf...

"Not even the shortest truce and, in the end, surrender without mercy." Louis-René des Forêts, "Face à l'immémorable"

In the Albert Béguin French translation, this madcap little book had a lot in, of course humor but also, lyricism. For lovers of the run-on sentence, of authorial inserts and digressions, the Appendix (a parallel genre to the novel, don't need Antoine Volodine to come up with one) is a must.

It’s been a long while! Empyrean Series nos. 46–50 are announced & available for preorder as of today. Books by Jean Paul, Pierre Custot, & Fernando Pessoa are due out in November. Ludwig Tieck & Niu Sengru will be published next spring. asterismbooks.com/publisher/em...

Claudio Abbado, Luigi Nono and Maurizio Pollini, ca. 1970s.

I am all for aesthetic terrorism. Putting the art in artillery.

No kings you say? I beg your pardon...

much reading of poet Ronald Johnson (1935–98) of late. including this magnificent reissue of his walking, seasons poem ‘The Green Man’ (1967) from @uniformbooks.bsky.social

I wrote about Fellini’s lesser-known THE TEMPTATIONS OF DOCTOR ANTONIO here: evillights.substack.com/p/the-tempta...

Stretch, retch, watched Fletch.

The folks with that perfect ending prompt are sending me like...

If you are to wield vitriol, do it as liberally as Gil Sorrentino (here with Wallace Stevens catching strays):

not only does Gary Larson still have the juice, it seems to have only gotten stronger

And that's a lie. There are wastes of time in art. A lot of the fluff I read as a child I do not miss at all. What's more it distracted from reading better stuff I may never get to now.

"You can writhe in the darkest pit and filth of yourself and come up with some dull fragment of vers libre, indistinguishable from that of a hundred contemporaries. Thus pain does not guarantee anything. Art, you see, is not interested in your suffering. It is not a muse."

Just came back from The Hague, where I admired Vermeer's "View of Delft". Proust had Bergotte die in front of this painting during an artistic epiphany caused by "le petit pan de mur jaune". There are many theories about which little yellow wall he had in mind. I'm convinced it's this one.

have a brass string quartet: youtu.be/LX4BbLgOLdM

If this is turning into cracking jokes about statutory rape then I don't like it. Hohoho he used parentheticals and scare quotes. Seriously?

THE CHASE (Arthur Penn, 1966):

"'I could write a book' is a timeworn phrase of the educated. To which there is no reply. Or a buck and wing, a fast smile, slow shuffle of the feet. Don't get me wrong—I like Sheila. She might as well write poems as Norman Mailer. Or Alan Dugan."

it would be useful & accurate to apply the term "middlebrow" to poetry & poets as a way of making distinctions within ideas of the "mainstream"

Idly wondering if there's a gesture I like better than having an actor noticeably stare into the camera. Best examples that come to mind are POLICE (ending, which Pialat kept as is despite editor Yann Dedet's protests) and especially Muratova's THE TUNER.

I hate John Cheever.

Rewatching Truffaut’s La chambre verte, I remembered how he once compared this film to a letter written by hand. “If you write by hand it will not be perfect, the writing may perhaps be trembly, but it will be you, your writing.”

My latest: "Numerous studies show that majors in the humanities—typically, in departments of English, history, philosophy, religious studies, classics and languages—lead students to employment and life satisfaction outcomes as positive as those for majors traditionally championed as 'practical.'”

I have no interest in either project.

Here is an anthem for a lot of political mediocrities. I usually post it around Christmas time. youtu.be/-nBtisLH8Ds

I reposted my 2020 piece on Keifer Nyron Taylor’s LLOYDIE: THE BOY FROM ST. THOMAS at the new Cinemasparagus stack. Subscribe there for free! evillights.substack.com/p/lloydie-th...

It's the season to be scary, Nobel's in the air. I still enjoy this take on the monster mash: youtu.be/CERo3DpxCrA

With Criterion Channel’s recent addition of five long-unavailable films by Kira Muratova, Aret discusses CHANGE OF FATE, her 1987 adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s play THE LETTER, transposed to a Central Asian colonial outpost during the Soviet era. inplainsightcinema.substack.com/p/change-of-...

October acquisitions

Roberto Rossellini might have watched one or several Italian sexy comedies with nuns in them. Like this one, on a misunderstanding with Brother Sun, Sister Moon on S. Francis of Assisi. One pictures him with head in hands, suffering intense discomfort.

A new Nanni Moretti film would not fix me. It would still be nice.

YOU'LL SEE THE THREE-HEADED BABY! YOU'LL SEE HITLER'S BRAIN!

Here's a song from a twelfth album everyone may enjoy: youtu.be/5h3nni7j2pc

- Vous, l’éternel marginal du cinéma, non ? - Ah ben oui, mais vous savez la marge, c’est ce qui fait tenir les pages ensemble.

New Substack post on Boulez's work with electronics, including links to recordings and documentary material: open.substack.com/pub/disgwylf...

"There are no mistakes in life some people say. It is true sometimes. You can see it that way." The Nobel Committee, singing along to Man in the Long Black Coat

Here are two instances of David Markson getting Harold Bloom's ass.

ICE is launching a nationwide operation Friday 10/3named “Freaky Friday” that will target unaccompanied children aged 14 and older of all nationalities.

Passacaglia? Anyone? youtu.be/lC6OpClIZmY

It's the end of The Best American Poetry. I wrote about the forty-year anthology project, poetry’s place in Big Five publishing, and editor David Lehman's culture wars vision of American verse. defector.com/good-riddanc...

Now are you kidding me with that label?

This is from the ending of STRONGMAN FERDINAND (Alexander Kluge), a right funny film about the insecurities and complexes of the security complex in 1970s West Germany. In which, in last ditch attempt at relevance, our hero plots a fake attack and bungles it, 15 years before DeLillo's Libra.

Walter Abish's "How German Is it" and everything that is the case. www.alinastefanescuwriter.com/blog/2025/9/28/how-german-is-it

"And twirling towards freedom!" This is metaphorical slapstick.

Same dullards who praise the worst movies out there were gushing. It's one of the best movies the had ever seen! It's epochal! Like THE GODFATHER or GOODFELLAS! (two statues ripe for toppling) So in I went to ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER with my heart at the continental shelf. I liked it OK, actually.

The Confidence-Man.